1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Each of application programs (hereinafter, “applications”) running on electrophotographic image forming apparatuses conventionally handles image data in a format that is optimal for the applications in consideration of productivity and image quality to make full use of features, which generally vary among the applications, of the application. Furthermore, printing units of image forming apparatuses of a same model vary individually. For this reason, image data values are adjusted to make printouts of the image forming apparatuses identical in image quality.
There has been a growth in recent multifunction peripherals (MFPs) that utilize a document (or an image) of an application in various forms. A known technique for this utilization involves format conversion between application-specific formats. An example of the technique is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-73895. According to this technique, an input image is converted into a universal format and thereafter subjected to further format conversion according to an intended use of the input image to improve a processing procedure for converting the input image into an output image.
However, converting image data from one format into another format that is application-specific and model-dependent arises problems. The problems are that an image of converted image data is degraded relative to an original image because the converted image data differs from original image data in color reproducibility and amount of data, and that processing time for the conversion affects subsequent job processing (i.e., has an impact on productivity).